


black ink or oils

by riverbed



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, a story about dealing, art school au, tenderness and growth because i'm gay for that
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-08
Updated: 2016-01-25
Packaged: 2018-05-12 15:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5670370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riverbed/pseuds/riverbed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What medium is it that each of us are drawn in? </p><p>Or, the art school au with complete disregard for canon that nobody asked for but everyone shall now receive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Birth

**Author's Note:**

> I'll warn, tag, and rate as I go along.

“ _Puis-je vous acheter du café?_ ” Illya realizes that it is intended for him.

He also realizes that he is, in fact, standing directly in front of a coffee bar.

But he had been looking at the sunrise, not the pastries. He turns on the stranger who had spoken to him, is met by eyes of deep blue and an easy, toothy smile. “What?” he says, ungracefully, still startled.

As if it’s any consolation, the other man seems startled, as well. He trips over his French. “Ah - _pardon_ \- I mean, sorry. I assumed you were French. Given - you know.” He gestures around them.

“ _Nyet_ ,” Illya says, and turns back to survey the grassy park that stretches out before them, the stream too-well-fed birds happily peck for discarded bread at the bank of. He sighs. For a blissful twenty minutes, he had forgotten that other people existed. Now he will have to start all over.

“A Russian, then! How intriguing! Isn’t it fascinating how Paris brings together so many different cultures?” The young man dances around to the front of him, blocks Illya’s vision of the park. He sighs again, settles his eyes on the American instead. “Look, we got off to an awkward start. Let me introduce myself more tactfully. Napoleon Solo.” He offers Illya his outstretched hand, beaming. Illya accepts it after a moment, giving Solo’s hand one firm jolt downward and then releasing it. The young man looks positively elated, eyes lit up like a child’s. “And… you?” he pries. Illya tilts his head at him, narrows his eyes. “Illya,” he compromises.

“Illya.” Napoleon tries the name out on his tongue, springs it off it quite precisely, much to Illya’s disappointment. People are easier to forget when they have no grasp of his name. “Well, offer still stands, Illya. Coffee? Or maybe - do you prefer tea? This place is excellent.” He nods toward the cafe behind Illya. “They have delicious bagels, something I never thought I’d find away from home.”

“Why?” Illya asks, taking a quick step to the side to be able to view the whole park again. He has grown tired of looking at Napoleon - looking at him is engrossing, all eagerness and naivete and convincing positivity. Illya finds himself exhausted.

Napoleon seems taken aback by the inquiry, though he answers easily. “Well - I saw you and I thought, he’s beautiful! I wonder if he’d like some coffee!” He smiles again, then furrows his brow when Illya’s eyes dart to scrutinize him. “I - sorry. I am not propositioning you. I’m an artist.” He hoists the rectangular bag on his shoulder forward as if in explanation. “Art student, actually. A painter. Always on the lookout for tall, exotic models.” He winks at Illya. Illya rolls his eyes.

He says, confidently, “You do not want me to model for you, Cowboy.”

“ _Au contraire_ , my friend.” Illya wishes he would stop speaking French, suddenly aware of memories which have been missing for four years in the most concentrated French-speaking city he has ever set foot in. His enunciation is too precise, his codeswitching too easy. “How can you be so sure, anyway?”

Illya mentally counts the ways. Well, firstly, there’s all the scars and bruises. Not exactly an artist’s canvas. The inability to stay in a confined place - still, yes, but restrained, no. The impatience. The… other things. He settles for a flippant wave of his hand. “I would not be at all desirable to an artist.”

“Not an artist yet,” Napoleon reminds him. “Let me buy you coffee. You’re not a tea guy.” He sounds sure. He trots off past Illya into the coffee shop and Illya turns on the worn heel of his boot and follows, still not entirely sure why. Free caffeine is nice, he convinces himself. Yeah, that must be it.


	2. Stagnation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Interludes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No real story here, only pain and flowers.

Illya fidgets with the placement of his leg on the stool. It is bar height, and he feels exposed, centered in the room and literally put on a pedestal. The wooden surface is not comfortable, but it is correct, somehow; it forces him to straighten his posture, bring himself to his full height. He feels more powerful than he remembers feeling since he was a teenager, since before his family fell apart.

Napoleon exhales indignantly. “You are quite the shit model,” he chides, leaning forward so the topmost page of the sketchbook on his lap scrunches beneath his arm. “I don’t know how I want to do this.” He wistfully eyes the small canvas propped on the easel to the side of him, on which Illya knows is only a fluid outline of his body, the beginnings of the contours of his musculature, the distant promise of a whole being. He sometimes feels like Napoleon’s early stages of work are a more accurate depiction of him than their finished counterparts, all loose bearings and melted features.

As for the finished paintings, he likes the portraits in pastels best, when Napoleon draws him as a figure somewhat ethereal, the final wash of water trapping his image in a soft gossamer tinge. He likes to pretend he is something mystical, something rising, something threatening and delicate all at once.

He likes to touch the place where Napoleon’s jaw joins his ear and trail his hand down his neck.

*

He once saw a self-portrait of Napoleon’s, too many angles to his face, and it disoriented him. He tries not to think about it when he watches him paint harsh, angular strokes against a canvas with a well-used crayon.

He tries to forget cubism exists when he watches Napoleon pare the same crayon with his pocketknife, tightly-bound pigment peeling onto his hands, staining them bright shades of orange and blue. He wipes his hands on a damp kitchen towel as if it is a chore and it stains the light denim of his blue jeans anyway, smears of color on his thighs. He presses against Illya and gets it on his skin, and each time Illya carefully considers before scrubbing it off.

*

When Illya had first moved (immigrated, he points out, when he berates himself) here, he had thought he’d known at least vaguely what it meant to be in love.

There was a girl, in Kiev where he had been shipped off to boarding school for two miserable years to avoid issues with his father’s imminent defection. He remembers the scent of her hair - ylang ylang, mostly, with a hint of woody amber - when he pulled her against his chest and the sprawl of her legs when he backed her against a desk. It had been uncomplicated, simple.

Napoleon is far from simple, though he is happy to let people think he is. He walks to school with a practiced neutral expression, ignoring the people for the most part in favor of the landscapes and the birds, except when he spots someone unnaturally beautiful and beams. Illya feels a tinge of envy and reminds himself that they are not doing anything that may indicate anything particularly committal - he is just walking Napoleon to class. Except that he is walking Napoleon to class every day, and whenever Napoleon does see someone model-worthy his knuckles brush against Illya’s, and Illya then feels a pang of something he hasn’t in a while: hope.

Illya does not wait around campus for him when he knows Napoleon is let out of classes for the day (the fact that he has memorized Napoleon's schedule is embarrassing enough). He often rides Napoleon’s bicycle downtown, though it is a bit too small for his legs, and paces the seedier streets, enters the seedier bars, secretly hoping to find someone to hurt him. Napoleon is too kind to hurt him, digging his his ragged nails into his hips much too softly.

The girl had never hurt him, had yielded each time. Too easy. Illya craves complexity though he presents the image of a single-minded brute. He takes a swig of his beer, which he hates. He and Napoleon are too alike, congruous contradictions. Too many angles. He searches the bar for someone with a willingness to wound.

*

Sometimes when Napoleon is not at home Illya flips through the pages in his old sketchbooks. Inevitably, he comes upon something that dizzies him, makes his cheeks go hot and makes him feel like he is invading the privacy of a man who has never requested any - some altogether-too-pretty portrait of one of his classmates (whom he has never met), her jaw too fine, her skin too creamy and unblemished. He examines, in the mirror, the scars and bruises on his body, convinces himself this skin will never be suitable, picks at it until he bleeds.

He promises himself he will never subject himself to the feeling again, but the time that lapses until he is next struck with the urge gets shorter and shorter every time.


	3. Renewal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So there's no story here, just me writing pretty things that make me feel better.
> 
> There is only the barest shred of finality here, but I couldn't leave this more unfinished than it now stands.

Napoleon is something altogether too vivid, like pure pigment thrown irresponsibly against stark white. The action kicks up dust of color and Illya coughs when Napoleon catches on his tongue, unsure if he will be able to breathe him back out entirely.

He is not open to the fact that he loves somebody. He is not capable of such nonsense. He tells himself this late at night when Solo has gone to sleep and he remains pacing the hardwood hall of his apartment in his socks. But he ponders the sureness of the fall of the infallible. His mother had always said hubris was every man’s weakness. He had simply assumed he was too miserable to indulge in hubris.

He thinks about the way his father wrote, as if every penstroke were a mission. Napoleon draws as if there is excruciating pain when he cannot do so - frantically, constantly chasing something Illya, in his pathetic, slow blindness, cannot understand.

He wonders if it is fucked up to see his father in a man whose body he could draw in rich detail even despite his own lack of creativity.

Illya has stopped asking drunks to bruise the pale parts of him dark. These days, things are quiet late at night. As he sits in the old armchair with his long legs tucked under him, he pulls a blanket over his torso and tucks in for a night of flipping through one of Napoleon’s old sketchbooks.

**Author's Note:**

> soma's ["secret agent" radio station](https://somafm.com/secretagent/) is a godsend, and I often listen to it while writing, not just about spies, or spies that I make not-spies.


End file.
